Mixed Heritage | Mixed Culture | Mixed Identity | Mixed Parenting

Racism

Frances Cress Welsing was an American Afrocentrist psychiatrist. Her 1970 essay, The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism, offered her interpretation on the origins of what she described as white supremacy culture. -Wikipedia

Sacheen Littlefeather (1946- ), a Native American activist and actress, is best known for refusing an Academy Award on behalf of Marlon Brando in 1973. He had won Best Actor for playing Don Corleone in “The Godfather” (1972), his most famous role. Brando thought it better to go to the stand-off at Wounded Knee between AIM and the FBI than to go to the Oscars.

She came up on stage dressed in her Northern Traditional powwow dance outfit, refused the Oscar and then said in part:

“He very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award. And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry (boos, applause) and on television in movie reruns and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee.”

FANSHEN: Recently I asked my friends when was the first time that they heard about the one-drop rule. And their answers were really incredible, so we’re sharing them here and we’d like to hear yours. So send us an email (onedropoflove(at)gmail, tweet us, anything, and let us know: when was the first time that YOU learned about the one-drop rule?

MARK: I self-identify as mixed, but I am politically Black. In our family we never talked about race or the one-drop rule – anything. And so basically I just intuited that there was a one-drop rule because I was defined as Black growing up as far as my experiences.

My dearest friend, growing up, would call me “contraband” because he learned about the phrase – he read something about slavery and that a slave that was seeking freedom, if they were caught they were considered ‘contraband’ and he thought that was funny. I had no knowledge, so he was calling me contraband and it hurt like hell and I had no ability to defend myself or to articulate a different argument.

So it really wasn’t until I graduated from high school, I was in the Marine Corps, I came across an interesting story in the New York Times about a woman who was suing the State of Louisiana because her birth certificate said that she was ‘Colored.’ She was raised White, she self-identified as White. And she fought her case all the way up to the Supreme Court and lost because according to state law, in 1970 if you were just any – any trace of Black, you were Colored to 1/32 Black, you were Colored. And she had 3/32s – they even went so far as to hire a genealogist. And so that fascinated me – it really resonated with me. I couldn’t articulate why, but I just found it a fascinating story.

Ten years later I was attending school at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland and I learned about the one-drop rule. And that’s where I learned about slavery, I learned about Manifest Destiny, etc. etc. etc. And I learned about the one-drop rule and I learned how pernicious and ridiculous it is and how hard we work to create a caste system and what really saddened me was defining Black as a negative – that if you had any part Black in you, that was not a good thing. And that’s…that’s heartbreaking. Nobody should ever have that experience and it will end because of people like Fanshen, who are creating this space for us to talk about elements of racism such as the one-drop rule and I’m very appreciative and have much gratitude for allowing me to share my story of how I learned about the one-drop rule.

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The Syrian refugee crisis is creating national debates on how to handle the influx of people from war torn nations all around the world. Last week the internet was ablaze with the news that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs himself was the son of a Syrian refugee after street artist Banksy created a mural depicting Jobs as a refugee.

Thomas Lopez and Kiyoshi Houston talk to us about MASC, a mixed community organization that reaches out to families and educates children on bullying and identity. Ken Tanabe is founder of Loving Day a celebration multiracial relationships and overcome racism. Really fun episode!

I love surprising intersections of the things I love the most. Such as Volkswagen and Loving Day. I’m not sure if I am more passionate about any other subjects. That may be an exaggeration, but anyway I am super into VW as well as the progression of our society toward a more loving, open way of living. Without Loving v. Virginia it is likely that there would be no me nor so many others. This is inspiring and undeniable progress for which I am grateful.